Header Menu

Changelog Bar

Monday, June 30, 2014

We all know how devilishly hard the latest entry for the 2000 song series is. So much so that it almost took an entire month since its release to witness some video evidence of a Donkama 2000 Full Combo!

THe video above showcases a player named Oriibu (おりーぶ) performing a Full-Combo play on one of Momoiro Version's final NO nightmares... and for the second time! This feat sounds even more impressive after knowing that the expert Taiko Team member who is in charge of testing Taiko notecharts before the official release only managed to pass the song, despite being able to reliably Full-Combo other difficult Oni milestones like Joubutsu 2000 and Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu's Ura Oni mode. Kudos!

First thing you might notice is the brand new logo above. The previous logo was just a temporary placeholder altered from the 2013 Japan Tournament, then based on the Sorairo ver. build. The agent company deemed a more Momoiro ver. style design would be more appropriate, and so here it is! The name is also officially changed to Taiko no Tatsujin Taiwan Tournament 2014 (太鼓の達人 台灣大會2014).

The rules slides are also replaced with ones bearing the new logo. None of the rules themselves are changed so we will not go through them but just link here.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Unlockable contents in Taiko no Tatsujin: Don to Katsu no Jikuu Daibouken can be unlocked by completing Stamp Album tasks and gathering certain totals of Taiko Points ("TP" hereafter) from stamps. Stamps also counts towards your rank.

Tamagotchi on the latest Taiko 3DS videogame is not the only collaboration even to look forward in these days! Another one just started today, featuring Japanese pop/rock band Do As Infinity and one of Bandai Namco's games from the "Tales of" series!

*cue fireworks and party poppers* It has finally arrived! Thus, a big entry was made to celebrate the release, with four main topics: interviews with the producer and director, DLC discussion, future events involving the game, and the next Nicovideo stream!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Packer returns with a Taikojiro chart! It's F-L-O-W-E-R, originating from Kirby Triple Deluxe, and is the boss battle theme for the third phase of Queen Sectonia, the final boss. Of course, we all know Kirby, the platformer game featuring the little pink puffball himself, Kirby.

Packer's made this chart with a decent amount of difficulty to fit the marching band drums in the song, with simple but moderately long streams to go along with the short clusters that make up most of the song.

Yuugen no Ran's transmittable characteristic spawned an interesting role in the Donder community: so-called Yuugen Missionaries. They will gladly accept requests to play 2-player games of Taiko to pass Yuugen no Ran along the community. Good luck in your work Missionaries!

Normally, a Full Combo of a song in Taiko isn't met with overwhelming fanfare. But the song in question is the first song in years to be so difficult that no single player could Full Combo it on its first day out: Donkama 2000! And today, on June 19th, 2014, seventeen days after Donkama was released, a player from Gunma Prefecture finally did it, with a score of 1.12 million points. Congrats to him! Hopefully more players will grasp this hugely challenging song in the days to come!

What of the other boss song, Yuugen no Ran? Just like Donkama, no single player was able to FC it on its first day; and limited distribution was not a huge factor as the attendees of the tournament finals were all super skilled players themselves. Let's see how long that takes.

Previously revealed in occasion of the Finals even for last year's Taiko arcade tournament, Taiko no Tatsujin Kimidori Version, the next main firmware build after Momoiro, will be available in the next month. But as usual, not every feature from Momoiro Version will be available into the newest update.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

More collab news! By bringing your 3DS (with Taiko 3DS2 of course) to one of 15,000 7-11 convenience stores that has the SevenSpot corner, you can download exclusive content when accessing the Nintendo Zone.

The first phase gives out a 7-11 branded outfit for Don-chan, available from July 1 09:00~July 15 08:59.

Right after the conclusion of Phase 1 is Phase 2, giving out the friendly monster Seven Cat for use in Story Mode. A recolor of Nekomata Saburou, this alt has the special skill of recovering all team members when attacking. Would be useful when your health is low! Get him before July 31 08:59!

Technically you could have hanged out at one such store on July 15 around nine, and you can get both in one go. Have fun!

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

As the game is being released next week, Famitsu has given its scores for the incoming Taiko 3DS game. The historical Japanese videogame magazine brand's four reviewers have evaluated the game pretty high this time, even higher than the previous 3DS title!

Don and Katsu's Space/Time Adventure got a 33/40 (single scores 8/9/8/8), topping the ratings of the previous portable game (8/8/8/7) AND even the big brother on Wii U (9/8/7/8). It looks like the game's Story mode really pushed onwards the final verdict for the Famitsu reviewers!

Sunday, June 15, 2014

After the latest arcade tournament's conclusion, the events that will be definitely remembered the most by Taiko fans are the identity revel of one of the most appreciated Taiko song composers and his latest composition for Taiko games, which has been teased several times in the past years.

Now, since my very first contribution to this blog has happened thanks to one of Zeami's song series, I decided to take a day off from the feature, so that I can make a deeper feature about the composer himself and the secrets lying behind his identity and his latest song. Off we go!

...not really, because the first ever video would have been Yosuga's exhibition play on stage yesterday.

Now being July 15, those who were at the finals can now play the verylong-awaitedYuugen no Ran themselves on Momoiro ver.! And duly out are capture videos of the chart, below being one of them (not played).

At a total of 1262 notes, Yuugen no Ran stands as the second most note-filled Oni chart, just under Shimedore 2000. The total notecounts in all four charts (3334), though, beat Shimedore's 3291.

At peak, a 95-note long 16th stream in 300BPM stands in your way. Not as dense as Ryougen no Mai's 24th in 208BPM, but the length would easily prove very draining. Also in average you will have to be churning an overall 10.50 hit per second to be passing this, towering over previous leaders like Ura Rotter Tarmination and Ura Yawaraka Sensha.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

All the rumors that Momoiro would be replaced in July are true; as mentioned in the previous post, the new version is called Kimidori. This post is just made to show the title screen of the new arcade firmware.

It's all green and stuff!

Outside of Japan, donders are also guessing when they will be getting this version as well. Fingers crossed it will be sooner than later!

Before we can come up with anything detailed and insightful, here are some abridged takeaways to light up the hype! Thanks to the Taiko Team for keeping their Twitter feed updated along the way too!

Index
Initial match-up schedule
Ending match-up - Champion: Yosuga of Kyushu
July 2014 update confirmed to be Kimidori ver.
Yosuga's exhibition first play of Yuugen no Ran and passing
The elusive Zeami on stage, is Tatsuya Shimizu
Next song on Taiko under Tatsh

Well, what d'you know? The Taiwan Tournament IS going to be called Donder! Taiwan-ichi Ketteisen 2014. Earlier Sume released a series of presentation slides to explain the rules and proceedings of the tournament, so let's take a look!

As promised, the new Namco Original song made by Zeami, Yuugen no Ran (幽玄ノ乱), will be distributed to all Banapass holders attending the tournament live, and is hoped that it will spread throughout Japan via the shared-play mechanic previously done with Joubutsu 2000.

The livestream for the tournament finals will be on June 14th, 2014, 1pm Japan time, using Nicovideo. No more typhoons to delay the tournament any further, fingers crossed!

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

From today, Japanese Nintendo 3DS users can try out the new portable Taiko game with the download of a demo version! Here is a gameplay video of all the stuff being featured.

Just like for the first Taiko 3DS game's demo, this one already features one of the full release's many secret songs! Sampling Masters AYA's Lightning Passion will make its return on console games as one of the first boss fight tunes of the game's story mode.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

News about two Namco Originals on the Momoiro arcades today. Again if you are not following the official @taiko_team feed on Twitter, you are missing out.

First, overseas Donders must have feel a bit left out not seeing STAGE 0.ac11 on a promotional appearance, after the livestream challenge last week (even after a whole day like last time's PaPaPa Love). Fret not, you are not forgotten! It is on a different week (June 14~22), that's all.

Speaking of late appearances, Etou also confirmed with a commentor that Yuugen no Ran, the long-dreaded new Zeami song, will be available punctually on June 15 if you got it from attending the Finals just as promised (if you discount the 8-month rain check).

Monday, June 9, 2014

Excited for the National Tournaments Finals this Saturday? Us too! Let the fact that the whole event can be viewed live on Nicovideo comfort you! The link is in the tweet below, freshly written by Etou today.

(screenshots and stream coverage courtesy of tetsutaro, crystalsuicune and Lokamp!)

As promised in the previous stream, if enough comments were gathered Etou would present his kitchen, or at least show off his extreme cooking skills. That's exactly what he did, but before that, this stream also has its own set of stretch goals for comments. Let's see them!

Friday, June 6, 2014

...and nope, we just coined that name to mess around a bit. What's true though is that Sume, Taiko Momoiro's exclusive agent in Taiwan, is going to host a Taiwan-wide Taiko tournament this summer, on the HD Taiko arcade!

Exciting as it can already be, Sume leaks that this Momoiro-inspired Banapassport design would be a gift in this tournament, delivered right from Namco Japan!

Stay tuned to Sume's Facebook page for more news on this tournament in the future! We here will also be keeping on the radar for those who can't read Chinese.

Today's Taiko Team stream session just ended, but a few hours before its beginning, a new announcement has been made about the console-unrelated Taiko portable games, which also has made its way later in the streaming in a series of paper-printed images like the one above.

If some of the names shown above don't ring any bell, ... here is what's about: a huge shipment of CreoFuga-spawn Taiko creations!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Speaking of the comment challenge in tomorrow's livestream, the early bird unlock from last time, PaPaPa Love, has just officially entered the Momoiro song list as a Rewards Shop purchase. Etou released this piece of information on Twitter subsequent to a commentor asking.

Another livestream is upon us! No more than 30 hours as of the writing of this, Taiko Team will host another Nicovideo-exclusive livstream show. It's high time we do an overall review on tomorrow's expected topics!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

A quick note that on Twitter, Etou is now accepting questions for 2000 Series composer Linda AI-CUE to be used in this week's livestream. Reply to the tweet linked below now! Submission ends later today.

Monday, June 2, 2014

The 19th 2000 series song, Donkama 2000 was released as June's Don Challenge song (and July for the Asian region machines!), and it is made up of pure madness, being arguably the 3rd 2000 song to employ extreme gimmicks in its Oni chart (the first two being Hataraku 2000 and Suuhaa 2000).

Almost EVERY SINGLE NOTE in the Oni chart has a different scrolling speed, and while it actually is not that difficult aside from the dense Don streams, the major hurdle to overcome in Donkama 2000 is the complete lack of readability. Yet another chart which I'm sure will divide players into two: those who think it is a terribly designed chart and those who think it is a sadistic masterpiece.

The title is based on the 1963 rhythm machine DONCA MATIC released by electronic instrument company Korg.

A more detailed guide will be up at the 2000 series page when we get more information. Look forward to it!

EDIT: Replaced with clearer capture vid and much better audio. Still pretty sure not a single person has passed the Oni chart yet.